Against the greyish-hued sound insulation tiles, I think the yellowed-ivory rice paper looks like mold.

Much as I dislike recessed fluorescents, this solution seems to draw even more attention to ugly office lighting.

to me this looks hideous. Almost like ceiling tiles are falling out after molding to a point where they can't stay in the ceiling anymore. The color of them would just make me more depressed.

ALso, seems like it might be a fire hazard. I know you're not waving fire up and down the hallway, but just doesn't seem like a good idea.

Agree with 212G. To me, it also looks really cheap. I would not use this in a place where I was hoping to make a professional impression.

How about researching filters to insert in the cans? It would help diffuse the light from those harsh, harsh, harsh fluorescent bulbs?

Yup, falling moldy insulation is what I thought of. What was so horrible about the fixture before? Also, they make commercial fluorescent downlights with glass diffusers to soften the light.

gross

Ugly and unprofessional. It may also violate local fire ordinances in an office setting.

Hideous.

I think part of the problem here was the photography. If they had taken the picture without flash, the color of the ceiling tiles would not be so prominent and bright. They should have taken a no-flash photo of the entire room straight on, instead of pointing up at the ceiling and only used flash for the up close pointing-up picture.

It would not have looked like mold if they had done that.

I wonder if the idea would have gone over a little better if there were four sides to the rice paper, sort of creating a hanging lantern. . It sure opens the mind to something hanging on each side of these lights.

I agree with LauraE; four sides, and perhaps a different color, would look much better.

Overall, I like the idea, just not this execution.

Four sides would make this far worse.
You simply cannot have crap hanging from the ceiling within so many inches of a sprinkler head.
This farce also looks like it's already blocking the path of the emergency generator lights.

No, just no, this is not a good idea---on all kinds of levels.

I'm with gordon. I never would have allowed this when I managed class A commercial properties. It's ugly and cheap looking and against fire code. There are plenty of solutions available in the lamps themselves.

The cleaning staff will probably remove them they night after they're put up, thinking they must be the consequence of a drunken office party with associated shenanigans.

No kidding, superflyguy. Yes, to me, this solution would just brings the eye upward, drawing more attention to how ugly the ceiling/lights are. Just leave bad enough alone--I never would have noticed a celing like that before the moldy paper got hung up there.

Also - giant pet peeve of mine - there's no such thing as rice paper. It's a racist moniker for Japanese papers made from mulberry, washi, and other fibers.

god this is ugly. uggghh.
among other bad associations listed above, this looks like flypaper, or whatever those things are called.
NO!

It looks like a poorly executed DIY